TV Time Capsule
Each month, Central Illinois' On-Line Broadcast Museum will update views of TV station listings as they appear in either the local publication of TV Guide or regional newspapers. The examples will include the TV station's published listings from central Illinois TV stations with explanations of any points of interest in those listings. This is a sample of what could be featured here at the Museum each month. Let me know if you are interested in seeing this continue.
The Week of June 11-17 (Friday-Thursday)
The edition featured here is one of two of the oldest TV Guides from my collection, and it is for the week of June 11-17, 1954. It was an era in which TV Guide's weekly listing went from Friday to the following Thursday. It is also one of my two editions, which are older than I am! The cover features comedian Ben Blue (who had a part in the W.C. Fields and Bob Hope movie "The Big Broadcast of 1938."
You might remember Alan Young from his part of Wilber Post in "Mr. Ed" for CBS TV in the early 1960s. Alan Young was also a radio star who hosted his sitcom series "The Alan Young Show." His namesake sitcom aired on NBC from June 28 through September 20, 1944. The series moved to ABC Radio from October 3, 1944, through June 28, 1946, after which it moved back to NBC from September 20, 1946, through July 5, 1949.
He later hosted a TV variety show from 1950-1953, which was shifted to a sitcom format to finish its run for CBS. His TV show alternated with The Ken Murray show. At the time of this TV Guide cover feature, he was going to be a regular on NBC's "Saturday Night Revue," a variety show premiering on June 12, 1954, with Ben Blue. Unfortunately, "Saturday Night Review" was only listed as being on KSD-TV, Channel 5, St. Louis, WOC-TV, Channel 6, Quad Cities (Davenport, Iowa), and WEEK-TV, Channel 43, Peoria.
He was approached in the mid-50s about starring in a sitcom with a talking horse but turned it down until 1961 when he played Wilber Post in "Mr. Ed" on CBS.
Points of Interest From the Schedule Above
Sunday, June 13, 1954
The most noticeable thing about this week in central Illinois TV history was the lack of NBC programming aired by WICS, Channel 20 in Springfield. Whenever you see multiple stations, like 5(KSD-TV), 6(WOC-TV), and 43(WEEK-TV) in the listings, it generally means that the show was broadcast on NBC.
When you don't see 20(WICS-TV) listed, that means that the ad agencies that sponsored the program for NBC did not purchase the air time on that affiliate. WICS was only about eight months old and would have to "prove itself" worthy of receiving network compensation for the purchased airtime. The biggest problem was the number of households reached by each station, plus when the station went on air. KSD has been on air since 1947, WOC went on air in 1949, and even WEEK-TV has been on air since February 1, 1953.
Both St. Louis and Quad Cities stations were VHF, covering a vast area of their regions. WEEK-TV covered a much larger city than Springfield, Peoria, and a more significant number of households than WICS, which only covered the Springfield market then.
WICS missed out on NBC programming for another reason, and that's one covered in the History of WICS on this website. Springfield was initially assigned a VHF allocation for Channel 2. Competition between up to three prospective owners kept the FCC from assigning it one of the companies. NBC and everyone else involved felt that that VHF station, if it ever went on the air, would, by default, become an NBC affiliate. Therefore, the network only had a month-to-month affiliation agreement with WICS. Only in a few situations would the agencies reach deep into their purchases of stations and request air time on Channel 20. The station would also become a secondary affiliate for ABC to help raise the possibility of ABC network compensation for WICS, even though Decatur's WTVP was already a primary affiliate for ABC. That was allowed because the signals of each station didn't reach much into the alternate city!
This problem for WICS wasn't unique to that station, as WTVP also suffered network programming losses because of its market size and inability to show audience gains as a UHF station. The network did not compensate the daytime public affairs programming on NBC to local stations, so the stations had the option to air them.
Channel 20, through no fault of its own, did not air some popular NBC programming during the evening shown here. Among those popular shows were "Mr. Peepers," "Summer Comedy Hour," and "The Philco TV Playhouse."
You might also notice Channel 19(WTVH-TV) listed alongside some of the CBS stations broadcasting a few programs. At that time, CBS had no primary affiliate in Peoria. CBS would become the secondary network for WTVH. WTVH suffered a similar situation with CBS, as did WICS with NBC. Peoria was also awarded the allocation for Channel 8, and CBS was assumed to be the benefactor of that VHF signal. Channel 2 in Springfield was moved to St. Louis; Channel 8 was moved to Moline, Illinois (Quad Cities) in the late 1950s. WTVH took on CBS as the primary network affiliate for a few years before returning to ABC for its network after WMBD-TV won the CBS affiliation. WMBD-TV went on the air on January 1, 1958, and became Peoria's primary CBS affiliate.
Another noticeable thing was the lack of television on Sunday morning for viewers in the Springfield, Decatur, and Champaign markets. The first station to sign on the air was WCIA at 11 am (CT). WICS signed on at Noon, but WTVP didn't sign on until 3 pm (CT). You'll also see that most programming on all stations before 3 pm was religion-based, followed by public affairs programming. Remember that most religious programming was paid for by the producers of the programs and contributed to the station's income. The programs relied on viewers' contributions to maintain the shows' airing on the local stations. Only the major stations did any entertainment programming.
Two TV stations were on the air then but were not listed in the TV Guide above. They were WBLN, Channel 15, Bloomington, and WDAN-TV, Channel 24, Danville. Eventually, WBLN was listed sometime later. WDAN-TV was ultimately sold by Northwest Publishing to Plains Television Partners (owners of WICS and WCHU) in late 1960. The station was an ABC affiliate from 1953 until mid 1962 and ran separately from WICS and WCHU. When the affiliation contract was canceled or expired, WDAN-TV became WICD and an NBC affiliate. It still wasn't listed in TV Guide, though, until September 15, 1962.